The Watershed Project’s Online Resources As we prepare to enter our third month of sheltering in place, it is becoming increasingly apparent that human beings crave connection, both to each other and to the natural world around us. In these trying times, TWP has been focused on building resources to help you stay healthy, stay connected with your community, and build self-sufficiency together. Community Science Initiatives In response to the current social distancing and shelter-in-place mandate for the state of California, The Watershed Project is unable to conduct much of …
Ebb & Flow
The Newsletter of The Watershed Project
Planting the Seeds of Resilience
By Paula Urtecho Even in the best of times, the bay area can be a difficult place for families to make ends meet. In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, many people have found themselves without livelihoods and perhaps facing food insecurity as a result. The Watershed Project decided to take on the specter of food insecurity that many in the communities where we often work might be facing. With our own programming sidelined by the shelter-in-place order, we wondered what we could do to help our partner communities during this unforeseen crisis. Drawing on inspiration …
Orange in the Time of Covid
By Dan Kirk Why do we publish an article in the What’s in Your Watershed column of this newsletter every month? A little bit about this column: We share facts about an organism or animal that lives in the Bay Area, and sometimes we tell stories of encounters, like an encounter with a Great Horned Owl. Why do we do it? I’m asking this question because over the past few months, I’ve been thinking about…a lot and asking many questions about things I normally don’t have time to think about. I tend to be an overthinker regardless of the crisis, but obviously things are different. I remember in …
Flirting With Water, Love Through Time
By Haleema Tahir It is a truth universally acknowledged that the youngest child in a group of children must, by necessity, do all activities with the same efficiency if not better. It was because of this, that one day I found myself face-to-face with you. My god, you are loud. And you are in my way. Did you have to flirt and dance right in the middle? I don’t think I like you very much. Listen, you, I need to get across to the other side. That’s where the action is. This is the first time I am allowed outside the house with the older cousins! And you aren’t helping. I toe just to the edge of …
Trees I have Loved – Strawberry Tree, Arbutus ‘Marina’
By Paula Urtecho I volunteer with an organization called Richmond Trees. The other day as I was planting trees in neighborhoods around Richmond, I drove past several Arbutus ‘Marina’, commonly known as Strawberry Tree, that I had planted in a sidewalk strip some years prior. They had grown exponentially since I’d last seen them, with sturdy bright red trunks and resplendent foliage and flowers. My heart did somersaults when I saw those trees! I remember the first time I laid eyes on a specimen of Arbutus ‘Marina’ in San Francisco. I was immediately …
Henry the Heron
By Dan Kirk Henry the Great Blue Heron lives in the San Francisco Bay, often seen in and around boggy wetlands. Sometimes on the Bay Trail you can see Henry standing still, about 4 feet tall, peacefully resting, or patiently waiting to snag a fish. When the sky is cloudy, and the water is grey/blue, Henry camouflages with the surrounding environment or rather, visa versa. Only when against the backdrop of, say, the green succulent ice plant, or the pale ivory of pampas grass does Henry’s location become visible, subtly revealing a popping blue figure with an S-shaped neck and dark long knobby …
Whitney Dotson Remembered : Champion of Open Space for All
By Paula White I first met Whitney back in 2005 during a field trip organized by the Sustainable Urban Planning class I was taking at Merritt College. Whitney met us at the Richmond BART station and we caravaned to Fred Jackson Way and Gertrude in North Richmond, where we talked about the history of the area and nearby Parchester Village, where Whitney lived most of his life. At the time, Whitney was in the midst of the fight to preserve Breuner Marsh from development, a decades-long battle that culminated with the 2017 opening of the Dotson Family Marsh. Whitney came across as very humble, …
Explore Contra Costa Creeks!
By Helen Fitanides For the last few months, we’ve been working with Flow West to build an app that brings together our monitoring data with that of other groups, and presents it in an interesting and interactive way. We’re happy to announce that the app is now live! Please visit it here, and read below for a tour of the app. On the main page of the app you can learn about all of the water quality features that we monitor in a creek, which have been grouped according to type, such as vital signs, which includes temperature, dissolved oxygen, pH, conductivity, and turbidity. Click on a …